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[Hand Of Thrawn] - 01(134)

By:Timothy Zahn


But there were the darkened windows of one of the Tower’s five tapcafes gazing down on them from the fourth floor, not to mention all the windows of the apartments stretching up into the night sky. If one of those windows concealed someone with a set of macrobinoculars …

Han clearly bad already bad the same thought. “We’d better get inside,” he muttered, taking her arm. “Come on, Threepio, move it.”

“Yes, sir,” the golden-skinned droid said hastily, levering himself awkwardly out of the back of the airspeeder and shuffling quickly behind them. That was the first time Threepio had said anything, Leia realized suddenly, since they’d left the Imperial Palace. Had be picked up on Han’s mood, and was trying to make himself inconspicuous? Or had he been brooding on his own memories of Thrawn’s last bid for power?

Lando emerged from his half concealment as they approached. “Han, Leia,” he nodded to them. His usual smile of greeting, Leia noted, was conspicuously absent. “Where’s Karrde?”

“He’s already here,” Leia told him as Han keyed the entryway lock. “The Noghri let him in.”

“Good.” Hunching his shoulders beneath his cloak, Lando threw one last look back into the darkness as be followed Leia in.

Thirty-eight stories tall, the Orowood Tower had originally been planned to be the nucleus of an elaborate and extensive colony of Alderaanians who bad been off-planet when the first Death Star destroyed their world. But though the architects had painstakingly crafted every facet of the Tower to fit the Alderaanian style, Coruscant’s crowds and near-total land development were simply too alien to their life view for most of the refugees to feel comfortable living there.

Though the rest of the project had been abandoned, there had been hopes that enough Alderaanians would remain on Coruscant to keep the Tower itself occupied, particularly given its spectacular view of the Manarai Mountains. But that final dream bad been dealt its death blow by Grand Admiral Thrawn’s short-lived but terrifying siege of the planet. When the siege was finally lifted, virtually all the Alderaanians left Coruscant, going to New Alderaan or scattering out among the stars. As one of them had e xplained to Leia, they had been lucky enough to escape the destruction of one world, and had no desire to settle on an even more tempting target.

And so the grand experiment had settled into vague obscurity, joining the host of other residential centers clustered beneath the mountains, most of which provided secondary or vacation homes to rich industrialists and government officials. Offworlders and aliens, most of whom bad never even heard of the fabled oro woods of Alderaan, let alone ever walked among them.

Over the years, the ache of that irony had mostly faded from Leia’s heart. Mostly.

The turbolift operated with the typical quiet efficiency of Alderaanian construction, depositing them into the lush garden scene that comprised the thirtieth-floor bobby. No one was visible mong the fronds and rock-pile water trickles; but then, no one was supposed to be. “Barkhimkh?” Leia called softly.

“I am here, Lady Vader,” Barkhimkh’s voice mewed from across the lobby. There was a rustle from the frond, and the Noghri warrior stepped into view beside the archway that opened into the corridor leading to their apartment. “All is quiet.”

“Thank you,” Leia said.

“Make sure you keep it that way,” Han added as they crossed the lobby.

Barkhimkh bowed his bead. “I obey, Han clan Solo.”

Karrde was lounging in a Plash self-molding contour chair in the apartment’s conversation circle, a datapad in one band and a glass of amber liquid in the other, as Han keyed the door open. “Ah-there you are,” the smuggler said, closing the datapad and levering himself out of the chair as they filed inside. “I was just thinking of asking Sakhisakh to try contacting you.” “We got a later start than I’d expected,” Leia explained. “I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize,” Karrde assured them. “The children aren’t with you?”

“They just left this morning with Chewie to go visit his family on Kashyyyk,” Leia told him. “With all that’s been happening lately, I thought it would be better for them to be there.”

“Between their Noghri guard and a planetful of Wookiees it’s hard to imagine anyplace safer,” Karrde agreed. “Hello, Calrissian. Nice to see you again.”

“Yes,” Lando said. “Though you may not think so when we tell you why you’re here.”

Karrde’s expression didn’t change, but Leia could feel a tightening of his emotions. “Really,” he said easily. “Let’s dispense with the formalities, then. Sit down and tell me all about it.”